The top photo above was just sent by Sue and Bill Rayner, who live on the north side of the Golden Gate Bridge. I would have thought their backyard would have been too cold for such a delicate flower.
Pearl and I had lunch with the Rayner's and Jim Seger a few years ago at Julia Child's restaurant of the American Insitute of Wine and Food located in Napa Valley. Bill was our next door neighbor and Jim was my roomate while we were freshmen at Stanford. We were planning to have a 51st year reunion in a week. Incidentally, the movie, Julie and Julia, opens today in a few markets (Hawaii, next week, I think), starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams, and follows the life of Julia Child.
The lower photo was just taken a few minutes ago: a sunburst with the State flower of Hawaii. Actually, to be perfectly correct, the Rayner's hibiscus, with the complementary red, looks like the official version. My hibiscus has only yellow. That sunburst looks exactly like the one I gave Pearl 27 years ago. By the way, does anyone know what is the official name of this flower? I scanned Google, and can just about confirm that it is not called a sunburst. I last saw it elsewhere at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C.
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The Dow Jones Industrials remained positive today, up 17 to 9172, for the best July in 20 years. Markets in the Orient increased and Europe was mixed. Crude oil jumped close to $70/barrel, and the Dated Brent Spot is now at $70.50/barrel.
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As mentioned a couple of days ago, that disturbance south and east of Hawaii became Tropical Storm Lana. It is expected to strengthen into a hurricane, but pass south of Hawaii over the next couple of days. I worry, though, about hurricanes suddenly turning north, as was the case for Iniki in 1992:
However, the waters are cooler closer to Hawaii, so, perhaps, we should do fine, and the really good news is that Lana, once at 60 MPH, as of this writing, is down to 50 MPH.
Yet, the hurricane that truly frightened me was Ioke, which formed in August three years ago just south of Hawaii while I was writing my chapter in SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for Planet Earth on hurricanes. Ioke moved west, began to turn north towards Kauai and then kept going west for more than two weeks, attaining Category 5 status, maxing out at 160 MPH.
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